Smart Phones - Not So Smart

I am a big fan of my smart phone. I use it a lot and I'm quite happy with it. But today I found one big problem with my phone. The Blackjack 2 has a QWERTY keyboard. This is fantastic when I have to compose an e-mail or a text message. However, it isn't so great when I have to call a phone number which is given to me in letters.

Imagine you have to call 1-800-1NUMBER on one of these phones. How the heck are you supposed to know which key corresponds to the letter 'n'. You can't unless you just happen to know it. I had to do this today, and I had to borrow my girlfriend's phone just so I could look at the number pad. Now what if I didn't have another phone to look at. How the heck would I have known what numbers to push?

Facebook on the Iphone

For those who can't get enough of facebook, you can now access facebook on your Iphone wherever you are.



I don't quite get this as a big selling feature. I get why people might want to be able to access the web all the time. I do it on my phone. I check various sites on my phone whenever I get a chance. But to have an advertising campaign to sell a phone based on one website? I must be getting old because I just don't get the allure of knowing every little thing happening to all my friends at my fingertips wherever I am. When you start questioning uses of technology and just not understanding why someone would want some new fangled idea, you know you are getting old.

Installing a Second Hard Drive

I installed a 2nd hard drive in my computer today. I didn't really need the space but figured I didn't want to ever worry about it so I just bought a 500 GB hard drive from Fry's (only paid $100 which was a pretty good deal) and went to open my computer to install it.

Installing a second hard drive is actually a pretty easy process which most people can do themselves You simply have to open up the chassis, screw the hard drive into a slot, find the power cord and the data cord and plug them in. If you have an older computer, it can be slightly more difficult, but with SATA drives, which most drives are these days, it is a snap. Boot the computer and your computer should recognize that you installed a second drive.

Of course, I find out that my stupid computer doesn't have a slot for another 3.5 inch drive, which is the standard size for all modern hard drives. So I had to go back to Fry's to go buy a sleeve to install the drive into a 5.25 inch slot. Stupid thing cost me another $20 (they did have some cheaper options but I went with this one). Nothing ever comes easy to me I guess.

DRM Sucks

DRM, or digital rights management, sucks. I have no idea why companies continue to insist on implementing half-ass solutions that do nothing to prevent piracy and do everything to prevent people who want to legitimately use their product from doing so.

I got Hairspray from my Blockbuster Online account. I actually have packed up most of my stuff already, so I don't really have a good place to watch the movie other than on my computer. So I popped the DVD in my computer, and started up my Media Center. Of course, my computer is having problems reading the stupid DVD because New Line had decided to put some Anti-Piracy measures on the DVD to ensure people don't try and steal this movie. These types of measures generally make it more difficult for computers to read the data because this is where pirates are going to try and rip the movie off of. It is supposed to work for legitimate uses, like paying in my media center, but there are always issues.

Of course, one quick search on any torrent network, and you can find copies of it. The only people this really hurts are those who just want to legitimately watch the movie. With the prevalence of media centers and people watching movies on their computer, I just don't understand why companies think this is a good idea. It does not stop piracy, it only pisses off legitimate users.